Be wary of fraudsters posing as Virgin Media employees

If you are one of the 900,000 victims affected by the Virgin Media data breach, it is vital that you watch out for scams. You could be targeted by fraudsters posing as Virgin Media employees who are attempting to successfully scam you with cold calls and phishing emails.

The Virgin Media data breach affected 900,000 victims, with the majority being broadband and landline customers and a smaller percentage being Virgin Mobile customers. The breach was discovered by an independent security researcher TurgenSec who then informed Virgin Media. The telecoms giant has since stated the breach was a result of an ‘incorrectly configured’ database.

If you have been affected by this data breach, you could be eligible to make a compensation claim today for the distress caused by the loss of control of your personal information. You could also claim for financial losses incurred as a result of the breach, or from scams from fraudsters posing as Virgin Media employees if this has happened and it is linked directly to the breach event.

Warnings of fraudsters posing as Virgin Media employees

The Virgin Media data breach occurred between April 2019 and 28^th February 2019. Research into the breach has found that the database was accessed at least once by an unknown third party during the 10-month period it was online.

As such, the information exposed could now be in the hands of criminals.

Victims of the Virgin Media data breach have been warned to keep an eye out for fraudsters, and some may end up posing as Virgin Media employees. The Virgin Media data breach included individuals’ names, email addresses and telephone numbers and, in some cases, contract information was also included. This is all information that criminals could use to be able to target victims.

Fraudsters posing as Virgin Media employees may have a number of ways to contact you. They could try by telephone and email, and fraudsters could then ask you to confirm payment details, security questions and more. This type of scam can be particularly believable if they already know details about you and/or your contract, fooling you into giving them more details. Fraudsters could then target your bank accounts or other online accounts with the information given.

As such, victims of the breach need to be vigilant when it comes to calls or emails, and remember that Virgin Media should never ask you to confirm such details out of the blue.

Similar data breaches where this has happened

An example of a similar data breach is the 2015 TalkTalk data breach. The breach included the personal information of some 156,959 of its customers, and 15,656 had bank account numbers and sort codes also involved. This information was exposed as part of the cyberattack and left people at risk of scams and crime.

TalkTalk customers were warned to be wary of fraudsters posing as official TalkTalk employees in an attempt to scam their customers through phishing emails and cold calls. In some instances, people were bombarded with contact attempts for a long time. Some were contacted by scammers posing as TalkTalk who used the information, likely gained from the breach, to scam thousands of pounds out of them.

The important point here is that the risks are very real.

Join our Virgin Media Group Action

If you have been a victim of the Virgin Media data breach, you could be eligible to join our Virgin Media Group Action now on a No Win, No Fee basis.

Head over to the main section of our website here to get started.

The content of this post/page was considered accurate at the time of the original posting and/or at the time of any posted revision. The content of this page may, therefore, be out of date. The information contained within this page does not constitute legal advice. Any reliance you place on the information contained within this page is done so at your own risk.